According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2008, the US consumption of industrial diamonds in 2007 was estimated to be over 600 million carats, valued at over $300 million. It indicates that synthetic diamond rather than natural diamond is used for about 90% of industrial applications and the main application is in the abrasives industry. Diamond material is fused to metal to produce specialty cutting tools.
When a high enough pressure packs carbon atoms together, diamond is formed. The traditional approach to creating industrial diamonds with explosives is based on using the pressure of a detonation to pack carbon atoms together. With this approach carbon is physically added to an explosive or a system containing explosives, the explosive is detonated, and the pressure of the blast converts the added carbon into diamond dust.
An explosive is a detonatable mixture of a fuel, typically consisting of carbon and hydrogen, and an oxygen source. Waste products of a detonation are mainly carbon dioxide, water, and various nitrogen gases.
The term “oxygen balance” describes the ratio of oxygen to fuel in an explosive required to convert the ingredients to CO2, H2O, Al2O3 and other oxides. Insufficient oxygen in a formulation means there is not enough oxygen for all of the fuel, or it is said to have a negative oxygen balance. Since the traditional approach to creating diamonds with explosives uses extra carbon, or insufficient oxygen, the mix is considered negatively oxygen balanced.
Prior attempts have failed to solve the problem of reducing waste products and creating industrial diamond products from a positive oxygen balanced explosives approach. For example, the creation of industrial diamonds using explosives have been based on negative oxygen balances achieved by adding carbon to an explosive and detonating the formulation have been disclosed in the prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,708 (Stavrev et al.) teaches a method of production of an ultra-dispersed diamond which can be used for the production of abrasive materials. While the invention taught by Stavrev allows for the production of a diamond, it does not solve the problem of creating a positive oxygen balance because the organic explosive or explosives have a stoichiometrically negative oxygen balance.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,916,955 (Vereschagin et al.) teaches a method of producing a diamond-carbon material that contains carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and incombustible impurities of a composition and the surface contains methyl, carboxyl, lactone, aldehyde, ether, and quinone groups by detonating an oxygen-deficient explosive. While the invention taught by Vereschagin allows for the creation of a diamond-carbon material, it does not solve the problem of creating a positive oxygen balance because the explosive has a negative oxygen balance.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,695 (Guschin et al.) teaches a method of producing super hard materials. While the invention taught by Guschin allows for the production of materials containing diamond products, it does not solve the problem of using a positive oxygen balance because the explosion has a negative oxygen balance.
Furthermore, there are numerous synthetic diamond manufacturers around the world and their products include diamond pastes, suspensions and lubricants and more with many applications. What is desired is an affordable method of creating industrial diamonds which consumes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and can also be used to reduce the consumption of products such as gasoline, oil and lubricants, which would reduce production costs and further benefit the environment.